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A Summary of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapuranam-2-3.

This way of instruction by Suka Maharishi continues through the Second Skandha, or the Second Book, of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana, and the same subject is continued in the Third Skandha where an elaborate description of the creational process through Brahma is described.

This description of the coming of things from the supreme Creator as we have it in the Srimad Bhagavata practically tallies with modern findings of the process of evolution.

The Bhagavata does not say that God created man in the beginning.

There was an evolutionary process, as conceived in scientific circles—namely, God created the Earth and the heavens, as it is said in the Bible, for instance, but He did not create man immediately.

Here is a little departure in the story of the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana.

There is the vast ocean, the vast Earth, the entire physical universe before us—sun, moon, stars, all things.

God created vegetation first.

The plant kingdom manifested itself in the process of evolution.

In this context, a question arises :- Did God create all things at one stoke with a fiat of His will, or did He allow things to grow gradually from lower to higher species in a systematic manner?

Both seem to be a valid answer in this connection. It is something like what goes on in the dream world.

Do we suddenly dream mountains, rivers and things in our perception of dream, or is there a gradual perception of things from one stage to another?

We can say both are equally valid.

We fall into sleep and suddenly begin to dream, and the entire picture of the dream world is before us as if it has been created at one stroke.

In that manner, we may say that the universe was created by a fiat of God by His will which He announced :- “Let there be light”—and there was light.

The order carriers of Lord Vishnu, who are worshiped even by the demigods, possess wonderful bodily features exactly like those of Vishnu and are very rarely seen. The Vishnudutas protect the devotees of the Lord from the hands of enemies, from envious persons and even from my jurisdiction, as well as from natural disturbances.

annam = food;
caranam = of those that move on wings;
acarah = the nonmoving (fruits and flowers);
hi = indeed;
apadah = the living entities without legs, like the grass;
pada - carinam = of the animals who move on legs, like the cows and buffalo;
ahastah = animals without hands;
hasta-yuktanam = of the animals with hands, like the tigers;
dvi-padam = of human beings, who have two legs;
ca = and;
catush-padah = the four-legged animals like the goat.

By nature’s arrangement, fruits and flowers are considered the food of insects and birds; grass and other legless living entities are meant to be the food of four-legged animals like cows and buffalo; animals that cannot use their front legs as hands are meant to be the food of animals like tigers, which have claws; and four-legged animals lik…